This invention relates generally to shoes in the field of healthcare, and more particularly to a walking adapter for use in conjunction with postsurgical sandals.
After foot surgery, the patient's foot is generally required to be maintained in an unflexed and unflexing state while recovering. This is required to allow wounds and stitching from surgery to remain stable to more quickly heal. In other situations relating to foot maladies, the medical practitioner there also may require that the entire foot be stablized and held in a flat unflexing position during the recovery period. However, in the majority of the above-referenced medical recouperative situations, the patient is otherwise able to ambulate.
Many inventions and devices are presently available to accomplish the task of maintaining the patient's foot in this unflexed and unflexing condition. A common well-known device is in the form of a postsurgical sandal comprising a rigid planer platform generally having parallel surfaces both top and bottom, the top surface may be padded slightly to eliminate bone pressure against the otherwise rigid platform, while the bottom surface may include a rubber or vinyl treaded ground-engaging surface for better traction and stability. However, these sandals, while doing an excellent job to immobilize the foot itself, are also extremely difficult for use in ambulation because of the unflexing, essentially flat configuration of the ground-engaging surface thereof, even occasionally irritating leg and hip joints and tendons.
During ambulation, of course the axis of the lower leg normally moves through an acute arch having an instantaneous fulcrum generally at the point of ground engagement beneath the ball of the sole of the foot. Likewise, during normal ambulation, the foot itself is allowed to flex in order to facilitate a smooth walking action. However, when the foot is immobilized from flexure by rigid platform postsurgical sandals, the ambulation process is substantially inhibited.
Because these conventional postsurgical sandals are relatively inexpensive to manufacture, and because they are intended for disposal after one-time use, such footwear remains as the most popular choice of the medical community for this purpose. However, a number of prior art inventions have recognized the need to facilitate somewhat of a more normal rocking action of the foot about some point of engagement to the ground. One such device having a broad ground-engaging surface is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,545,104 to Laurie for a walking cast protecting boot having a centrally located ground-engaging surface therewith. Another such device for use in conjunction with plaster casts is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,307,536 to Blosser; however, this invention includes structure adapted to be encapsulated and held against the sole and the foot and within the bottom of the walking cast. Yet another device for use in conjunction with foot casts is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,584,402 to Silverman, this sandal adapted to interengage around the plaster cast and to provide an elongated platform of diminishing thickness over the entire length of the rigid platform from heel to toe toward its toe support portion, thus also facilitating somewhat of a rocking motion of the ball of the foot during ambulation.
Still another device for use in conjunction only with walking casts is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,916,538 to Loseff disclosing a walking heel having a toe cover and having transverse grooves adapted to receive lengths of plaster of paris-impregnated material to assist in affixing the heel to the cast. This invention incorporates a curved ground-engaging surface over its entire length and substantially along the entire length of the sole of the foot to assist the patient in a heel-roll-over-toe gate.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,567,678 and 4,414,759 to Morgan et al. disclose a postoperative shoe having a unique ground-engaging surface also intended to permit the shoe to roll, imitating the natural motion of the foot during walking.
However, all of the inventions above described collectively fail to address the medical practitioners' needs in the first instance to avoid all flexure of both foot and its relationship to the lower leg immediately following surgery or treatment while later, after heeling has begun, satisfying the needs of the patient in more comfortable ambulation. To accomplish this dual-fold ambulation requirement based upon prior art, two separate pairs of post operative footwear would be required, both of which would be disposed of after one time use. Further, all of the devices discussed provide no means for adjusting or repositioning the ground-engaging fulcrum or pivotal point of the desired rocking motion of the foot to satisfy individual patients' needs.
The present invention provides a means for quickly and easily adapting a conventional postsurgical rigid platform sandal into one which facilitates normal foot and ankle rocking during ambulation at a point in time during recovery when the patient is determined to be able to handle such flexure and rocking motion after surgery.